Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

SPIES OF WARSAW (2013)

Like one of those WWII espionage pics about a Nazi spy who can’t get his superiors to believe his secret info on the upcoming Normandy Invasion, this British mini-series, set in pre-WWII Poland, finds its French operative unable to convince his superiors that a Nazi invasion will come not against the well-defended Maginot Line but thru the supposedly impenetrable Belgium woods. A fresh take on an overworked subject, and it gets you thru the first half of this not-so-hot adaptation of Alan Furst’s Spy-vs-Spy novel. But by Part Two, an ill-chosen, chemistry-free cast; lax megging; and lack of any discernible French, Polish or German flavor wears off any novelty that remains. David Tennant is particularly off his game, narrow-shouldered and passionless, with little urgency in the field or between the sheets. And what’s with the shooting & staging of the action scenes? Were they farmed out to apprentices?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Try George Seaton’s surprisingly strong THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR/’62.

No comments: